


Reaching Out

by Vinnocent



Series: Teen Titans: Morph! [13]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Blue Beetle (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:36:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1546148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinnocent/pseuds/Vinnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the Teen Titans and Animorphs fight Yeerks in Jump City, the rest of the world begins to discover that the invasion is not isolated. In "Reaching Out," Jaime and his friends discover Yeerk activity, but there's a price for their fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaching Out

**Author's Note:**

> When I published this on tumblr, I was able to use the Scarab Speak font, which meant that Khaji Da's lines were readable with the use of copy-paste or text-to-speech. Since I cannot use that here, I've had to substitute with Morse Code to get that feeling of alienness. You can use a morse code translator, or read the original here [http://teentitans-morph.tumblr.com/post/84239834420/] but understanding Khaji Da is not vital to the fic.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her. He really, really didn’t. She just kept going on and on about how nice it was to have such a well-organized community group. How they really made sure everyone felt welcomed and wanted.

\- .... . .-. . / .- .-. . / .- / --. .-. . .- - / -- .- -. -.-- / ... . -. - .. . -. - / .--. .- .-. .- ... .. - . ... / .. -. / - .... .. ... / .-. --- --- -- --..-- / .--- .- .. -- . / .-. . -.-- . ... .-.-.-

“Yeah, you said,” he grumbled under his breath.

Brenda frowned at him. “Well, you don’t have to be rude about it.”

Jaime groaned and rubbed his face. “Sorry, it’s just the--" He glanced around, seeing the people around him for what they really were, through the eyes of the scarab. “Uh, I woke up too early,” he lied. Part of him wanted to take it back. To just grab her and run.

But maybe it wasn’t that bad. They _did_ seem like nice people. And the scarab over-reacted to a lot of things. The sinking feeling in his stomach didn’t quite believe him, though.

.. - / .. ... / - .... .- - / -... .- -.. --..-- / .--- .- .. -- . / .-. . -.-- . ... --..-- said the scarab. .--. .- .-. .- ... .. - . ... / -.-. .- -. -. --- - / -... . / - .-. ..- ... - . -.. .-.-.-

Jaime started laughing then, despite the fact that no one had told a joke. He just kept laughing, face buried in his hands, and tears welling up.

－ －

“Why are we breaking into Brenda’s community group?” Paco asked again, loyally following his best friend through the alleys that would lead to the new community center.

“I just want to check it out,” said Jaime, glancing past a fence before pulling Paco along.

“Okay, but when she finds out --’cuz she’s gonna find out, she always finds out-- you’re the one getting murdered, not me,” said Paco.

Jaime rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll tell her it was me,” he promised, knowing well and good that doing so absolutely would not stop Brenda from blaming and subsequently murdering Paco.

The community center looked empty, but the scarab seemed certain that it was not. They found a back door, but it was locked. So, of course, the scarab just melted the handle off without even asking.

“Whoa!” Paco said, stepping back. “You sure--?”

“I didn’t make it do that!” Jaime insisted angrily.

Paco looked between Jaime and the melted doorknob. Finally, he shrugged and pushed at the door. “Well, as long as it’s melted.”

Jaime followed him inside, peering around in the dark. “Yo, you see anything?” Paco asked, and Jaime shrugged. He could see, but there wasn’t really anything _to_ see. Some chairs. Some tables. A small kitchen in the corner. A storage closet.

\- .... .- - / .. ... / -. --- - / .- / .-. --- --- -- / --- ..-. / ... - --- .-. .. -. --. --..-- said the scarab, and suddenly Jaime could see the schematics of the place. The kitchen was recessed, slightly, the wall on the far end coming out in front of it, with the closet door on the end jutting out. That would make almost the entirety of the wall a long, thin closet, which, of course, made no sense.

But there were windows in the wall. Windows that looked out from the building. If that wall wasn’t an exterior wall, then how were they looking out?

Jaime allowed the armor to push into place, his scarab-created clothes melting out of the way. Paco jumped in surprise. “Dude!” he cried. “Don’t y’ think you’re overdoing it?”

“Something’s weird, Paco,” Jaime answered, quietly making his way over to the suspicious wall.

“You keep saying that,” hissed Paco, following after him. “But _what’s_ so weird to you? I have never seen a more normal place. You’re tripping on bug stuff again.”

Jaime tapped the windows, able to see the schematics and details with the help of the armor. “These are video screens,” he told Paco.

Paco blinked at him. Warily, he approached the screens. He brought his face right up to one and squinted. He tapped. Finally, he turned to Jaime, frowning. “Kinda looks like a window.”

“It’s a really good screen,” Jaime assured him, walking around toward the kitchen and the closet door.

“There ain’t TVs that good,” Paco insisted, still tapping at the screen.

“There are cell phones _almost_ that good,” Jaime assured him. “It’s just too expensive to make TVs like that. Right now anyway.”

“But someone uses it on _windows_?” Paco said. “Why?”

Jaime didn’t even bother checking if it was locked before melting off the closet’s doorknob. “Because they’re hiding something,” he decided. He opened the door.

Paco came around and looked over his shoulder. “Those are some real evil brooms, dude,” he teased.

Jaime reached in and pushed the brooms and boxes around, looking for a switch or something. “This has gotta be it,” he insisted. “There’s gotta be a way to--"

\-- --- ..- -. - .. -. --. / -.-. .- -. -. --- -. .-.-.-

“--WAIT NO!” Jaime objected, but the cannon had already built itself on his arm and was charging up. “PACO, DUCK!” Paco jumped behind a kitchen counter just before the armor raised Jaime’s arm and blasted away the broom closet.

“Man, you have gotta get a handle on--" Paco blinked in surprise. “... Jaime… Jaime, what’s that noise?” he asked uneasily.

“There are people down there. Really far down,” Jaime said quietly. “And they’re screaming.” He turned to his friend as Paco peeked around the kitchen counter. “You should go.”

Paco covered his mouth in disgust. “What’s that _smell_ , though?”

Jaime glanced back at the stone staircase descending far out of sight. “Analytics say it’s nutrient pools,” he said.

“Nutrient pools?” Paco repeated. “Jaime, what is going on down there?”

“-.-- . . .-. -.- ...,” said Jaime. Again, he turned back to Paco, who was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t take the time to understand. “You _really_ need to go.”

－ －

“YOU BLEW UP MY COMMUNITY CENTER?!” Brenda raged, throwing her arms wide and mimicking a preparation to punch Jaime. He wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t.

He held up his arms in defense. “Brenda, you don’t--"

“I know it was you, Jaime!” Brenda said, hitting him on the back of the head. “They _saw_ Blue Beetle! People are talking about whether the Blue Beetle has gone villain!”

“No, I mean-- Wait, they’re what?” Jaime shook his head. “Brenda, I mean, you don’t know what was going on down there?”

“Down there?” Brenda repeated. “What down there?” She spun on Paco, who had been trying to make a quiet retreat from Jaime’s living room. “Paco, what is this nonsense?” she demanded.

Paco raised his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me! It was all his idea! When I asked him what was up, he said ‘Clickity-Clack-Clack’.”

Jaime blinked at him in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “I told you it was Yeerks.”

“Dude, I have never heard that word before,” Paco insisted. “I’m telling you, you _clucked_ at me!”

Jaime stared at him, but Brenda grabbed his face to direct his attention to her. “Jaime, I’m only going to ask once. What. Is. Yeerk?”

“Arin brun sug,” said Jaime. With a sigh, Brenda released his face, and he tried again, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer. “Alien brain slug,” he said, wincing.

Brenda and Paco just stared.

Jaime sighed and continued. “Remember when you took me there because you were impressed?” he said.

“Day before last?” said Brenda. “Yes, Jaime, somehow I am managing to recall that.”

“Yeah, well, uh…” He scratched his head uneasily. “Um, well, the whole time I was there, the scarab was going off at me about parasites.”

Brenda’s brow knitted together and she frowned. “Parasites?” she repeated.

“Yeah. It said the room was full of parasites, and I couldn’t trust them,” Jaime explained, to which Paco burst out laughing. “Yeah, I’m aware of the irony,” he grumbled. “Anyway, so I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure what it was talking about, so I took Paco to investigate. I only meant to look around, but there was like a whole hidden space, behind the closet. When I blew that away, I could hear screams, Brenda.”

Brenda nodded slowly. She walked over to an armchair and fell into it. She just kept staring at him, not saying anything, so Jaime continued, “As soon as that happened, the armor was able to tell me what it was. It says that they’re Yeerks. They’re not from here. That they’ve been running around the galaxy snatching bodies since the 60s.”

“Snatching bodies?” Brenda repeated.

“Yeah, they crawl in through the ear canal,” Jaime said, shoving a finger at his ear for demonstration. “Wrap themselves around your brain. Take control. It’s not you anymore ‘til they let go.”

Paco swore under his breath. Quietly, just in case Milagro or Mrs. Reyes happened to suddenly appear in the room somehow.

“They have to go back to their pool --that smell you smelled, Paco-- every three days,” said Jaime. “If they don’t, they’ll die. So when they do that, the people go in cages. And that’s the screaming.”

Brenda gawked at him. “So you blew it up?!”

Jaime shook his head, waving his arms emphatically. “No, no! Just the community center!” he insisted. “There’s a whole complex way below that. Lots of other entrances, it looked like. I want them to leave, not _die_.”

Brenda glanced at Paco, then back at Jaime. “Uh… leave… with the bodies?”

Jaime felt sick. He hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “If I can figure out how to free them, you can bet I will. But right now, I’ve gotta focus on stopping them. Keep them from getting more.”

Brenda nodded. “Then I’m staying with The Sharing,” she decided.

“Brenda!” Jaime objected, while Paco called her crazy. She just shook her head.

“If I stay with them, then I’ll know the other places they hang out,” she said. “You’ll be able to find the other entrances faster.”

“I think I should tell Posse,” said Paco. “They won’t like something like this, and the more eyes, the better.”

Jaime shook his head. “Let me clear them first,” he said. “We don’t know they’d know it if one of them got brain-slugged.”

Brenda grinned. “Alright then! We have a plan! This is something we can handle!”

Jaime forced a smile. “Yeah,” he said. But he wasn’t quite so certain.

“You want us here when you tell your mom?” asked Paco.

Jaime looked aside. “Uh…”

Brenda gaped at him. “You _are_ going to tell her right?”

“Yes!” Jaime insisted. Then… “Probably. Eventually.”

“Jaime…”

“Look, I tell her what these things do? And that they could be _anyone_?” he shook his head. “None of us will ever be leaving the house again. I can’t kick Yeerks out of El Paso if I’m grounded.”

“Man, she finds out you’ve been lying, you ain’t gonna be grounded,” said Paco. “You’ll be _buried_.”

Jaime nodded and folded his hands over his head. “Yeah, trust me, I know. Just… I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

Brenda frowned. “If you think so…”

－ －

About twenty blocks down from the still smoking Wendy’s, Jaime was able to find a spot to hide and change back. The armor sank into his skin, into his bones and guts, and the scarab shrank and sank into his spine, just under the skin.

“Ugh, that never gets fun,” he complained as clothes manufactured from biological detritus wove themselves around him. After taking a moment to collect himself, wipe the sweat off his brow and get his heart rate and breathing normal, he walked out onto the street, where some people were pointing at the smoke in the distance.

“Man, that’s him again, ain’t it?” some redneck was saying. “It’s that Beetle. I knew he was bad kind, and now he’s blowing up the whole city! Totally at random! Wants to keep us scared. I betcha the gove’ment will move in right behind him!”

Jaime rolled his eyes and moved on.

The newspapers in the boxes had his face -- well, the armor’s face -- on them. Or shots of his destruction. Using words like “villain” or “terrorist” depending on what they thought might get the most attention.

He told himself he didn’t care. The fact that the public didn’t understand just proved he was doing a good job. He was keeping them _innocent_. That was a good thing.

He pulled out the hidakey, kept around specifically because he kept losing his in disappearing pants, and unlocked the front door.

.--. .- .-. .- ... .. - .

“Yeah, yeah,” Jaime groaned. “We just took care of that. Let me take a break.” He entered the house to find Milagro alone watching TV in the living room. “Oh, look,” he teased as he passed by the kitchen. “You managed to turn the TV on all by yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Milagro absently. “She figured it out back when you were dead.”

.--. .- .-. .- ... .. - .

Wow, that was har--. Jaime froze in place. Slowly, he turned to face his sister. “What ‘she’?” he asked.

\- .... .- - / .. ... / .- / .--. .- .-. .- ... .. - . .-.-.-

“Milagro,” she replied in a too-sweet tone. She turned and looked over her shoulder at him, grinning viciously. “I think we should talk, _hero_.”

\-- .. .-.. .- --. .-. --- / .-. . -.-- . ... / .... .- ... / -... . . -. / -.-. --- -- .--. .-. --- -- .. ... . -.. .-.-.-

Jaime ran to the kitchen and threw up in the sink. She followed him in and leaned against the doorway. “Awe, now I’m insulted.”

“GET OUT!” he screamed, spinning toward her. “GET OUT OF MY SISTER!” As he waved his arm at her, the armor automatically extended down the length of his arm and mounted the cannon.

Worry flickered across Milagro’s face, but she just smirked at him again. “What are you going to do? Incinerate your sister?”

-.. . ... - .-. --- -.-- / .--. .- .-. .- ... .. - .

Jaime forced his arm and the cannon attached to it to lower. “No,” he admitted. “What do you want?”

Milagro smiled. “Here’s the deal, hero. We don’t like you blowing our things up. We like this planet. You’ve got a lot of good hosts. Useful resources. You keep messing that up? We’ll take them all. Your dad. Your mom. Paco. Brenda. We’ll take your school. We’ll take your neighborhood. Every old lady you helped cross the road. Every kid whose dropped books you picked up. We’ll take them. We’ll punish them just for knowing you. Even _think_ about escalating from there, and we’ll call in the Kryptonians. Oh yes, Superman is _ours_. We’ll make this a desert town. Switch to an open invasion. Whatever it takes to stop _you_.

“But it doesn’t have to be that way, Jaime,” she promised. “We don’t have to fight. In fact, all I need from Milagro is the ability to keep an eye on you. You play nice, I’ll relinquish control. The vast majority of her life will be lived by her own volition.”

Jaime scowled. “Play nice?” he repeated.

Milagro shrugged. “No more villainy. No more Yeerk targets. Stick to your specialties, the gangs and the metas and the street crime. Be the person you were before you learned about us. And everyone’s happy. It’s like we were never even here.”

“Yeah, until you take over the _planet_ ,” Jaime growled.

Milagro shrugged and glanced at the armor-covered arm. “Be a good boy, and maybe we can work something out.” Her eyes returned to his face. “That’s up to you.”

Jaime looked down at his arm.

Slowly, the armor slid away.


End file.
